Customer Reviews

The Overnight Resume, 3rd Edition: The Fastest Way to Your Next Job (Overnight Resume: The Fastest Way to Your Next Job)

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Directed to job seekers who know the kind of job they want, have relevant experience, and have basic business writing skills. Its premise is such a candidate should be able to write an effective resume in a few hours by following its advice.

Asher identifies four responsibilities of a resume:
* get the interview
* structure the interview
* refresh the interviewer's memory
* justify the hiring decision to others.

Asher recommends what he calls the profile style, a chronological resume that begins with a profile rather than an objective. The first 10 lines are the most important; they must hook the reader and answer the question, "What can this candidate do for me?" Functional resumes are difficult to write and many employers don't want them because they hide weaknesses.

Write the resume from the employer's point of view. Start by envisioning the ideal candidate. Then consider how your background exemplifies the ideal. Throw out the obvious; put the information in order of interest to the reader. Describe each job by scope and accomplishments. Use insider language and jargon if it would be readily understood inside the target industry.

Use action verbs to sound exciting. He recommends using superlatives ("top producer", "lowest error rate") and making claims specific and quantifiable ("supervised 3 architects and 14 engineers" rather than "supervised staff"). Create the telegraphic style typical of resumes by writing a letter to your sister, then eliminate unnecessary words.

Design and layout should be professional and simple. Control the reader's eye with judicious use of emphasis: bold, italic, underline, font size, capitalization. Don't use too many different types of emphasis on the same page. The page should look attractive and balanced when held at arm's length. Use a common font. Resumes need not follow any particular style guide, but internal consistency is very important.

Asher includes tips throughout the book, such as:

* Don't use initials to hide your gender; an employer may not call if they don't know the correct title to use. If your name is androgynous, add a title in parentheses (Mr., Ms).
* Technical resumes now tend to focus on specialization rather than a laundry list of systems, applications, and platforms.
* Use a local address; PO Box for privacy.
* If cell phone number is on resume, don't answer it if you're at a party.

Asher has little interest in rules, and focuses on addressing the document's purpose and using common sense. He proposes four rules, only one of which is a really a rule: Do not tell a lie. However, he dilutes it by suggesting a risky tactic to fool a computer filter for language fluency.

A chapter on cover letters calls them routing slips. They should be very brief, written to a person by name, and should identify a prior contact or personal referral.

The book includes example resumes, including some humorous ones (e.g., barn cat transitioning to house cat), a chapter on handling common problems, styles specific to occupations, geographic differences, and how to get interviews.

Paragraph-by-paragraph, the text is conversational and very well-written. It would benefit from better organization. Some of it is written like a step-by-step guide, but there are some detours.